Here in Los Angeles, school's out for summer. For thousands of school kids, this is the first week of summer vacation. And for thousands of parents, it's the first week of hell.
One summer, when I was on break from architecture school in Tijuana, my aunt gave me a summer job cleaning up and peeling garlic, and I got to see her in her element. She was so passionate and such a good teacher, I decided to quit architecture school and go to culinary school in Los Angeles.
Supposedly, summer vacation happens because that's when the kids are home from school, although having the kids home from school is no vacation. And supposedly the kids are home from school because of some vestigial throwback to our agricultural past.
There was nothing like a Saturday - unless it was the Saturday leading up to the last week of school and into summer vacation. That of course was all the Saturdays of your life rolled into one big shiny ball.
I was living in Maryland and my first week was dreadful. My first week I actually got into a fight at school
I was living in Maryland and my first week was dreadful. My first week I actually got into a fight at school.
When I was a kid, my father would go to our school in the summer to sweep, mop, and wax the floors, room by room, hall by hall, week after week.
I'm 19 now, and I go to The New School in New York, where I study Criminal Psychology. My first week of second semester was during Fashion Week when my first editorials in 'CR Fashion Book' and 'Sports Illustrated' came out. It was crazy!
Summer was here again. Summer, summer, summer. I loved and hated summers. Summers had a logic all their own and they always brought something out in me. Summer was supposed to be about freedom and youth and no school and possibilities and adventure and exploration. Summer was a book of hope. That's why I loved and hated summers. Because they made me want to believe.
My first job was working in a dress shop in Los Angeles in 1940, for $7 a week.
In 1983, I was working at an art gallery in Los Angeles and going to film school at Los Angeles City College. At that time, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a young painter and was visiting L.A. for his first show at the Larry Gagosian Gallery.
In order to get the worst possible first impression of Los Angeles one should arrive there by bus, preferably in summer and on a Saturday night.
If your kids attend school and grades are up that will make $1,000 contributions to some 10,000 kids across the country, are challenging kids to learn foreign languages or challenging kids to get summer jobs or seek summer enrichment opportunities?
I went to a school for experiential learning all around the city of Los Angeles. We went on at least 2 field trips a week, and I went there for 7 years, so I have seen a lot of this city.
When I was in high school in Los Angeles, my mother, who was a speech therapist, agreed to stay over the weekend with one of her clients and his little sister while the parents went away on vacation. She brought me along.
I guess growing up I realized that there is really this huge epidemic in a city like Los Angeles, and many other cities, where they put down thousands upon thousands of animals every day.
I go to a small Catholic school where we have mass every week and say a prayer every morning, but we also are in Los Angeles, where people are so progressive and open.